Michael Doran and Hillel Fradkin – Muslims and Power
The Tikvah Podcast
Tikvah
4.8 • 658 Ratings
🗓️ 26 December 2014
⏱️ 122 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In 1993, the late Samuel Huntington described Islam as having “bloody borders.” But what does this observation have to do with Islam as a religion or set of ideas? How much of the violence in Syria, Iraq, Libya, and Gaza or the uncertainty in Iran, Pakistan, Egypt, the Gulf states, Indonesia, or Turkey has to do with Islamic ideas? Is the Islamic State a new geopolitical challenge or an ancient one? What would a better understanding of Islam tell us about these state and non-state actors’ strategic priorities? And how much can we really extricate religion from politics? During our two-week advanced institute, “Jews and Power,” we thought it valuable to glance at the two poles that are of most concern to Jewish power in our world: the United States and the Islamic nations. To take a look at political Islam—both as politics and as Islam—we invited two scholars of Near Eastern politics, Michael Doran and Hillel Fradkin, both of the Hudson Institute, to take up these questions and more.
This event was recorded on December 11, 2014.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Last week, we were joined by Brett Stevens, who discussed his new book, and the larger theme of America in power. |
| 0:09.8 | But if you actually just look at the world and think about the world, I think one would have to come to the conclusion, reasonable conclusion, that from the perspective of the Jewish state and the Jewish people, |
| 0:22.1 | while America is certainly one pole of power which one must pay constant attention, |
| 0:27.8 | the larger question of Islam in the Middle East would have to be the other large pole. |
| 0:33.6 | And so we thought that to nest and frame our questions about Jews and power, it made sense to also just look sideways in America in power, and tonight, Islam, Muslims in power. |
| 0:47.7 | Just during the break from this afternoon session with Elliot Abrams, I ran back to my desk and just at random printed out the front page of the |
| 0:57.8 | Washington Post. Just this afternoon, like, what are the, what are readers of the Washington Post |
| 1:03.6 | looking at? And, you know, in a very normal day, five of the 12 headlines have to do with tonight's question. |
| 1:13.6 | A day, which I mean, it's not like there's, you know, right now that there's some grand |
| 1:20.6 | American military action or anything else. But just again, like on a normal day, this is |
| 1:26.1 | what the world is thinking about, talking about |
| 1:28.3 | major strategic threats and political opportunities come from our question. |
| 1:35.3 | So that's what we're going to be talking about. |
| 1:38.3 | Joining me next to me is Michael the Rand Senior Fellow of the Hudson Institute. |
| 1:45.8 | He worked for our teacher this week, Elliot Abrams and the Bush administration, where |
| 1:52.1 | he worked on the National Security Council, was responsible for helping to devise and coordinate |
| 1:56.8 | United States strategies and a variety of issues related to the Middle East. He also worked as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense of the Pentagon. |
| 2:05.6 | He's written in a wide variety of fora, but is certainly most famous for his extremely active Twitter account |
| 2:12.6 | for animated, which he'd be obliged to all of you for following. |
| 2:20.3 | Next to him. |
| 2:21.3 | Immediately. |
| 2:22.3 | Next to him is Dr. Hillel Prattkin, who's the director of the Center of Islam Democracy |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Tikvah, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Tikvah and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.